The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 60

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Academy Absolute Professor Episode 060
The Moving Rat
Medical Office.
“Wow, thank you so much!”
A Student bowed deeply.
“My back’s been stiff for days, but now it feels great. I think I’ll be able to train properly starting tomorrow!”
“That’s good. Still, take it easy for a while longer.”
“Yes, understood!”
As the Student left, chattering with gratitude, Hwang Ye-rim let out a hollow laugh from the corner of the room.
“Funny how they don’t mention that the Professor’s acupuncture deserves any credit.”
“Professor.”
“I’m joking, joking. That kid whined for days even after I needled him, but one session from you and he’s fine? You placed it here?”
Hwang Ye-rim stepped closer to Baek Yu-yeon and gazed quietly down at the meridian diagram sketched across the chart.
Recently, the Medical Office had grown noticeably quieter.
It wasn’t as though Students no longer came in with training injuries or tangled Qi and Blood Flow.
But the patients who used to drift in and out of the Medical Office for days would disappear after a single acupuncture session from Baek Yu-yeon—and wouldn’t return.
‘Remarkable, truly.’
Curiosity flickered in Hwang Ye-rim’s eyes.
“Isn’t this meridian point a place where Qi can backflow?”
“Ah, that.”
Baek Yu-yeon answered with a gentle smile.
“It’s not backflow—it’s rerouting. It looks like backflow on the surface, so people often misunderstand.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, if you look at this meridian channel here……”
Baek Yu-yeon continued her explanation smoothly.
Her Master had said there was no need to hide these things, so she explained in detail whenever asked.
In truth, this process benefited her greatly as well.
By breaking things down simply to match another’s level of understanding, one naturally deepened one’s own foundations.
“……Oh!”
A small gasp escaped Hwang Ye-rim as she listened.
‘Goodness.’
What she’d thought illogical now struck her as perfect—so perfectly elegant it raised the hair on her arms.
Like listening to some higher-dimensional science.
“Here I am, the Professor, and I’m forever learning from you.”
“I’m only passing along what Master Kang taught me.”
“You know that wounds my pride even more, don’t you?”
Hwang Ye-rim’s eyes narrowed, yet a smile spread across her lips.
Whatever she said, she was genuinely enjoying this moment.
It felt like the blockade of knowledge that had long been sealed was suddenly flowing clear.
She could distinctly feel her medical skill advancing in leaps and bounds thanks to Yu-yeon.
“How is Yu-seol doing lately?”
“Yu-seol?”
At the mention of her younger sister, Baek Yu-yeon’s expression brightened.
A smile rarely seen in earlier days.
“She’s eating well. For the past few days, she’s even been taking light walks around the complex with Mom and Dad in the evenings!”
“Walks?”
Hwang Ye-rim was astonished.
‘That girl is actually improving?’
Modern medicine had declared Baek Yu-seol’s condition incurable.
Which meant?
Kang Hyun’s expertise surpassed modern medicine itself.
‘Who exactly is that person?’
Teaching martial arts well, and now hot in the circles, and medicine too?
Honestly, with that level of skill, she’d have to admit he earned the right to talk big in front of the Dean.
‘And now he’s gotten his hands on the exchange program administration too?’
Though a contract professor, his duties were nearly indistinguishable from a tenured one’s.
‘What absurdity will he pull off next?’
Strangely, she found herself looking forward to what Kang Hyun might do.

* * *
Professor’s Lounge.
“So Professor Kang is overseeing this one?”
“Isn’t the Director showing blatant favoritism at this point?”
“Even granting his teaching ability, I never expected him to show up at the welcoming ceremony with a bottle in hand. At this rate, won’t Professor Kang be the one going to the international exchange tournament too?”
“Hah, before we know it, we’ll be dragged into some scandal!”
When someone rises to prominence, envy and resentment follow as naturally as shadows.
But today, Jin Myung-hun found their muttering particularly grating.
‘Calling themselves professors, and they have no shame.’
Jin Myung-hun, at least, acts openly.
He doesn’t hide behind silence in front of others only to tear them down behind their backs, like these cowards.
“Professor Jin, that’s right, isn’t it?”
One of the professors approached him, oblivious to the atmosphere.
“Professor Choe.”
“Yes?”
“It’s loud.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you have complaints, go and voice them directly. To Professor Kang, or to the Director.”
“Ah, no. Why are you suddenly saying that? Didn’t you also look down on Professor Kang before?”
“His sloppy attitude was never to my liking.”
“Then why……”
Jin Myung-hun didn’t answer. He rose and straightened his jacket with deliberate care.
The professors around him flinched and stared.
These people.
How do they expect to survive with such innocence?
Can’t you feel the atmosphere shifting?
If you don’t want to end up like Professor Park and Professor Kim who were let go last time, you’d do well to read the room and act accordingly.
He let out a soft click of his tongue.
Jin Myung-hun said nothing more.
Life had always been survival of the fittest, after all.
He stepped out of the building in silence and fell into deep thought as he walked.
‘Batar said it clearly. That Professor Kang is weaker than me.’
Jin Myung-hun couldn’t shake that thought.
It had lodged itself so deeply that it wouldn’t dislodge.
‘Professor Kang yields his momentum too easily.’
That statement meant one of two things.
Either his senses were truly dulled by the alcohol, or he was a master capable of concealing his Internal Martial Power.
But the latter made no sense.
No matter how skilled a master, could he deceive even an S-Rank Hunter so thoroughly?
Before he realized it, he was standing in front of a liquor shop near the Main Gate.
‘When did I get here……’
“Welcome… Oh? Aren’t you Professor Jin?”
As the Academy’s senior professor, his face had been plastered across the media often enough.
It was no wonder the shop owner recognized him.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Ha, so Professor Jin enjoys drinking! But we’ve never seen you here before. How strange.”
“I’ve never had a drink in my life.”
Jin Myung-hun was an ascetic who had spent his entire life wielding a sword and keeping to discipline.
He knew nothing of the taste of alcohol.
“Really? Then why?”
“I’m curious. Recommend something for me.”
“Well, there are many types… Whiskey, cognac, vodka, wine…”
“Just give me the strongest you have.”
He picked something from the owner’s recommendations more or less at random and returned to the Professor Building, where he stared at himself in the mirror.
Today his face looked particularly shabby.
‘I wasn’t like this last year.’
His shoulders had been broad and proud, his eyes sharp and keen — the very picture of a senior professor.
But what about now?
There stood a pathetic wretch, cowed by Batar’s presence, constantly second-guessing himself.
He loosened his necktie as if in a trance.
He unfastened a couple of shirt buttons and pulled them open.
And as if that weren’t enough, he’d left his hair tousled.
Kang Hyun’s usual disheveled state, unmistakably.
‘……Actually not bad at all?’
The image of Kang Hyun’s handsome face—full of decadent charm and wild allure—surfaced in his mind.
“Ahem.”
He promptly uncapped the bottle he’d just bought and brought it to his lips.
Gulp, gulp, gulp!
His throat burned, but stubborn pride pushed him to down roughly a third of it.
‘Even Professor Kang, who’s weaker than me, can do this—surely I’m not so pathetic?’
Whoosh!
As heat flooded his face, courage seemed to spring up from nowhere.
‘Oh, this is it! This is the stuff!’
At this rate, he reckoned he could even stand up to Batar.
‘Kang Hyun! That bastard—no wonder he drinks every damn day……!’
Thud!
That was Jin Myung-hun’s final thought before he collapsed.

* * *
Late evening.
The lounge of the dormitory where the Mongolian students stayed.
“Khasar.”
Batar caught Khasar as he was heading inside after grabbing water from the refrigerator.
“Yes, Professor?”
“The exhaustion still hasn’t lifted?”
“No, it hasn’t.”
He rubbed his face roughly with a dry hand.
“It persists.”
Even after sleeping, his body felt leaden and sapped, as though he’d trained brutally through the night.
It had been six months now.
Mongolian martial physicians and renowned doctors had all weighed in to no avail—their conclusion was always identical.
‘There is nothing physically wrong with him. It appears to be purely psychosomatic symptoms arising from extreme stress.’
Khasar must have been frustrated, but Batar’s heart had sunk as well.
Bahamut and the other top students from higher grades were certainly capable, but in his eyes, Mongolia’s true future was this very Khasar.
An essential talent for eventually catching up with hunter superpowers like the United States and China!
“For now, skip tomorrow’s training.”
“……Sir?”
“Your recovery comes first.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know you’re anxious.”
Khasar was such a hard worker that he was commonly called obsessive about training.
“But rest when I tell you to rest.”
“Professor, more than that…….”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the Korean instructor.”
At the sudden mention of Kang Hyun, Batar’s eyes shifted.
“Professor Kang Hyun? What about him?”
“Just…… I don’t trust that man.”
“What aspect troubles you?”
“Ever since we first met, he’s been staring at me constantly.”
“At you?”
“Yes. Even during the Horseback Riding Stance drills at the Practice Grounds earlier—he kept his eyes fixed on me alone, ignored all the others. Surely you noticed, Professor?”
Batar shook his head.
He’d been absorbed watching the Korean students’ impossible endurance, while Kang Hyun had simply sat on the bench sipping whiskey.
“You’re being overly sensitive.”
Batar replied matter-of-factly.
“You may be struggling now, but you were once a world-class prospect—the Khasar of Mongolia. Any foreign instructor would naturally be most cautious and observant of you first.”
“……It wasn’t like that.”
To be honest, Kang Hyun frightened him on an instinctive level.
Whenever he met that gaze, fear crept up his spine and he wanted to flee.
“Very well, I understand.”
“Khasar.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry yourself. There’s nothing medically wrong, so just manage your stress as much as you can. If anything happens to you, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”
“……Thank you, Professor.”

* * *
The joint training continued.
Next came the two-night, three-day dungeon expedition under Batar’s command.
The itinerary involved clearing several B-Rank Dungeons scattered throughout the mountain valleys of Gangwon-do Inje.
Gang Hyeon followed along.
Normally, he wouldn’t have gone.
‘Because Khasar’s going.’
From the moment Gang Hyeon spotted him at the welcoming ceremony, he’d been pressing Khasar relentlessly.
He was deliberately provoking Simdeunggui’s demonic energy, trying to draw it out.
They cleared the first dungeon without incident in a single day, and night fell deep.
After the students set up the campsite and gathered before the bonfire to debrief on the first dungeon, they turned in early for tomorrow.
And when the clock struck midnight precisely.
Zip.
A man with copper-toned skin emerged from a tent, unzipping it as he stepped out.
It was Khasar, his eyes completely unfocused.
‘Heh.’
Watching from where he sat perched on a branch above the tents, Gang Hyeon’s lips curled upward.
‘The little rat finally moves.’
That’s right.
Where will you go, Simdeunggui?
Back to your true body?
Or will you do as you always do—tear out someone’s heart?
Gang Hyeon downed a mouthful of whiskey and began to follow Khasar silently into the darkness.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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